Director Plans Revitalization Of Suffolk District

Downtown Business Area To Undergo Restructuring

March 29, 1989|By GEORGE PAASWELL Staff Writer

SUFFOLK — Faced with increasing competition from outlying shopping centers and malls in other cities, the Downtown Suffolk Association's Main Street Program has armed itself with a new executive director with strong ideas for Suffolk's central business district.

In addition to bringing in new businesses and revitalizing existing businesses, the Main Street Program plans to create professional and residential space in downtown. By combining mixed-use space and retail outlets, Van Pelt said she hopes Suffolk can do more than just compete with the malls.

"I don't think Suffolk should try to compete with the malls on solely a retail basis," she said, speaking by phone from Albany, Ga., where she currently works at the Albany- Van Pelt Dougherty Inner City Authority.

"We can have government services, professional resources as well as retail," she added. Van Pelt was hired because of her focus on the need to restructure and promote downtown, Denison said. The search committee reviewed nearly 40 applicants in two stages, selecting Van Pelt from four applicants during the second stage.

"Her specific experience ... showed a background principally in economic development. And that's going to be our main thrust this year," Denison said.

Van Pelt, 28, is a native of Virginia Beach. She graduated from Old Dominion University in Norfolk with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1983 and obtained two master's degrees, one in philosophy, from the University of Tennessee, and one in public administration and human resource management, from Valdosta (Ga.) State College. Although she has not worked for a Main Street Program previously, she has worked on the downtown revitalization program in Kingsland and Albany, Ga.

"The four parts of Main Street's program - organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring - will occur, for the most part, in that order," she wrote in a letter to the DSA.

"Downtown's organization is strong; we are ready to concentrate on image promotions and design work," she added.

To attract more shoppers, Suffolk must create a unique shopping environment, Denison said. Suffolk must offer "a hometown type of service that is not available anymore," he added.

"The types of stores that come into downtown are not going to be the same as the malls," Denison said.

Among Main Street's programs currently under way are surveys of store owners and employees in downtown, and a soon-to-be conducted survey of area consumers, focusing on their ideas for a central shopping district.

In addition to creating a unique atmosphere, Van Pelt said, she would like to create an identity for Suffolk and build a yearly festival around that. "It should be something that would be associated uniquely with Suffolk," she said. "We need a theme for a festival in downtown."

Such a festival could bring in people from all over Tidewater, and expose them to Suffolk's downtown. "We need to get them in occasionally. That is a goal," Van Pelt said.

Van Pelt will take over the position from interim director William "Mac" Patterson on April 24. Patterson is serving as interim director following the resignation of Miriam Rowe Bill at the end of February.